


Look At All The Happy Creatures

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Daddy Danno, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:05:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inexplicably, Danny's weekends with Grace become filled with wildlife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This _is_ done, for the most part, save for a few last minute touches. So, chapter one today, probably chapter two tomorrow. Thanks to LdyAnne for encouraging what is a pretty silly fluff fic and finding spots that made her go hmmmm. Title yoinked from CCR's _Lookin' Out My Back Door._
> 
> The story is 95% Danny and Grace time, so if that's not your cuppa, now you know. There is also many a mention of Steve/Catherine, because of the pining. But it is so not about the het, so I didn't list that in the pairings.

As far as being awoken suddenly from a deep sleep went, Danny Williams would never be an advocate of it. Beyond any other circumstance of rude awakenings, there could be no reason more panic-inducing than the sound of one’s child screaming. Grace’s high-pitched cry seemed bloodcurdling in the early morning hours as it resonated through the apartment, and ohshit ohshit, all of his systems dialed to dread before he was fully cognizant. His baby needed him. 

Brain fuzzy and body running on adrenaline, he flailed on the mattress, getting twisted in the sheet and more falling than leaping from the bed to run to Grace’s rescue. He stubbed his big toe on the nightstand, hopped awkwardly and by the grace of some higher power didn’t end up on his ass. Instinct put his sidearm in his hand without conscious thought. Another piercing cry cleared the remaining cobwebs.

“Grace,” Danny murmured, wanting to shout and scream himself, but he couldn’t risk it without knowing what he was dealing with. “I’m coming, baby.”

“Danno,” Grace cried. “Daddy!”

Danny wouldn’t say he skulked down the hallway toward Grace’s voice, it was more of a controlled shamble. He tried to listen for other noises, something to give him an idea of what he was dealing with, intruder, some stranger with his hands on Grace. He heard nothing and he didn’t have time to fully scope out the situation. He rounded the corner into the living area and there Grace stood stock still and staring out the large window. He was at her side in a few short steps.

“Grace? Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Daddy.” Gone were the screams. In their place, whispers, which seemed somehow more ominous. “There’s something out there. It’s _big_.”

Jesus, it had better be that creeper neighbor of his. Turned out, the weirdoes were everywhere. Danny’s improved living situation was supposed to have solved that and he was kicking himself for not having backed out the second he saw Ron Wanatabe lurking way, way too close to his main floor and as-yet too insecure windows. He was fixing them tomorrow. 

“That asshole,” Danny said. “If he thinks he can peep on my little girl…”

“Daddy,” Grace said, impatiently. “It’s not a he. It’s an it. See?”

Surreptitiously clicking the safety back on his gun but not setting it down, Danny inched toward his daughter, who he realized belatedly hadn’t tossed a glance his way. Her eyes were riveted to the window, wide, frightened and maybe a little awed. He peered out the glass and saw nothing. He frowned, but then considered he still had a few inches on Grace – god help him next year, when she sprouted up taller than him, he wasn’t man enough to be ready for that yet, or ever – so he took several steps closer to the window and crouched a bit.

And came face-to-face with a decidedly not human face with far, far too much floppy hair covering most of it. Large, goofy ears and a strange snout were all he could identify on the animal poking its face through a shrub. It was so close it fogged the glass when it breathed. Holy smokin’ Bullwinkle. Danny aimed the gun right at that snout, a move instantly protested by Grace and her surprising strength tugging on his arm. Through the window, he heard the creature make an odd sort of huffing bleat and it jolted backward, thundered away from the building. He sagged, then, and hurriedly put his gun down on the table near the door, half dragging Grace with him as he went. For a moment, he stood there clad only in boxers, with Grace latched onto him, both of them warily checking the windows. Danny may or may not have made sure the door was deadbolted. He had no idea if that … thing had opposable thumbs and he felt a tad ridiculous about that, but better safe than sorry. 

“Okay. Okay. Okay, I know this place is filled with all sorts of weird birds and animals and creepy crawlies, but that,” he said finally, pointing in the vague direction of the window. “That was not normal, even for here.”

Grace blinked at him owlishly, still appearing somewhat startled by the morning’s events but beyond that she had that spark of interest in her eyes that was specific to children. She chewed her lip, then said, “Hawai’i has a very diverse wildlife population. We should feel honored it chose us to visit, whatever it was.”

Danny blinked. Then blinked again, and stared at his sweet eleven-year-old, who had apparently aged at least five, maybe ten mental years overnight. Grace was right, nature was good. It might even be great, unless a person happened to be an east coast city dweller who considered nature to be the three foot patch of yard one may or may not be lucky enough to owe a monthly payment to the mortgage company for. While he might have made a disparaging remark had it been, say, McGarrett, lecturing him about the wonders of this tropical hellhole, he wasn’t going to tear Gracie down like that. 

“Well, there’s not much I can say to that. You’re absolutely right, sweetie.” Danny nodded and did his best to make his expression look sincere. It was one of those acceptable parental fibs; he couldn’t tell her he’d feel more honored on the off chance that thing hadn’t crapped all over the grounds or trampled anything he might have to pay for. He had half a mind to call animal control, if only he knew what to tell them had been out there. “What were you doing up so early, anyway? It’s Saturday, you usually don’t get up till seven.”

“I dunno, I just woke up and wanted some Lucky Charms.” 

Grace’s stomach growled. Then Danny’s did. They exchanged big grins, and, well, he had more time than ever with his little girl but it was still limited. He might just as well stay up and enjoy every extra minute the beastly interloper had accidentally given him today. Besides, he thought he could do better than Lucky Charms. His stomach rumbled again at the thought that had been planted in his brain. He scratched absently at his noisy belly, and was reminded that he was standing there in his skivvies. Never mind his creeper neighbor, he was doing just fine on his own. He was not in the habit of wandering around in his underwear, for Christ’s sake. 

“Forget the cereal. We’re both up anyway. Let’s get into some clothes and then how about I’ll make your favorite thing in the whole world instead of a lousy bowl of cereal?”

“Banana chocolate chip pancakes, yay!” Grace shouted her vote and dashed off, her arms raised in victory. 

Yay, indeed. Danny was no gourmet chef, but he would dare IHOP to best his banana chocolate chip pancakes. Even the modifications his health-conscious daughter had insisted on last year after her nutrition and wellness class – almond milk and whole wheat flour – hadn’t damaged them too much. He drew the line at switching to non-wheat flours, though. Grace had tried to tell him coconut flour was the way to go. No. That was too much to ask. 

He had showered, dressed and had the first batch of pancakes in the skillet before Grace re-emerged from her bedroom, hair in slightly lopsided braids. Danny rolled his eyes at his daughter’s ever increasing primp time, but then had to bite back a frown. It was another sign Grace was growing up. He knew it wouldn’t be long before banana chocolate chip pancakes no longer brought instant joy, and before everything Danny did and said would make Grace snarl or roll her eyes instead of smile. All the more reason to enjoy these moments when they happened, he thought, he was living on borrowed time.

“Hey, you’re getting better at that,” Danny said, sparing a moment from pancake flipping to tug at one of Grace’s braids.

“Thanks.” Grace pulled the orange juice from the fridge for him, the milk for her and poured the glasses. “I’m not perfect yet.”

“I have no doubt it’s only a matter of time.”

“Daddy,” she said, a verbal eye roll if ever there’d been one, but she smiled like the imp she still was, obviously pleased. “You have to say stuff like that because I’m yours.”

“You know I speak nothing but the truth.”

As they chatted their way through the stack of pancakes, all thoughts of the fuzzyfaced impetus for their special breakfast faded right along with Danny’s worries about his girl growing up too fast.

H50H50H50

Danny couldn’t figure it. McGarrett hadn’t mentioned any big weekend plans, but there he and Grace stood at the obviously empty house. It was unreasonable to be irritated, he knew that, and he wasn’t. Disappointed, maybe, but mostly on behalf of his daughter. He suspected Grace had developed the exact same crush on his partner most of her Aloha Girls troop had since their disastrous trip in the woods. He was hoping it would never go beyond the puppy love stage, because _awkward_ , for several reasons. He didn’t have the heart to unpack some of those reasons, as they were by all appearances hopeless.

“Sorry, Monkey, it looks like he’s not home,” Danny said. 

Grace turned her best sad face toward him. While Danny had still been in a food coma from their carb-heavy breakfast, Grace had commenced to wrapping him around her little finger. He’d have agreed to just about anything, though once he regained brain function he regretted saying yes to this. He was fairly sure Steve had a thing with Catherine this weekend, and judging from the lack of inhabitants at the house, he had been spot on. He hadn’t really wanted to broach that subject with his impressionable girl, though, and maybe a part of him had also hoped for Steve’s company.

In all honesty, he didn’t mind sharing his father-daughter time with Steve. Not always, of course, but on occasion it was nice. In a weird way, having Steve there made it seem even more like family time rather than father-daughter time. Like it was a more rounded visit. He chose not to think about how that same feeling was absent the times he, Grace and Gabby had ever spent together. Yeah, Danny had grown to appreciate the times when his weekend switched from a duo to a trio with Steve, specifically. Possibly, he appreciated it a bit too much if he built it up in his head like that. See aforementioned things that didn’t need to be unpacked, ever, and also see Steve and Cath’s thing for additional reference, he thought to himself. The last thing he needed was for Grace to pick up on his own internalized disappointment, so he smiled and shrugged at her. 

“I guess we should have called first,” Danny said, though they’d long since given up calling ahead – both him and Grace with Steve and Steve with them. He couldn’t remember the last time there was an official invite. “He’s probably off hunting wild boar or something.”

“Dan-no.” Grace thumbed vaguely behind them. “I don’t think so. His truck’s here.”

Well, some detective he was. That was an irrefutable point. Steve’s Silverado was indeed parked out front, a strong case for him being at home somewhere unless he’d gotten that monstrosity of a car in the garage running again. Knowing Steve, he had and was now stranded on the side of the road somewhere. It would serve him right. The Marquis needed to stay locked up. It was more of a menace than its owner.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if we went around to the other side of the house to see if we can see him,” Danny found himself saying. “Maybe he’s in the water.”

“It is a good day for a swim,” Grace said with a hint of hopefulness in her voice. 

That was the thing about spending some of his Grace-time with Steve; his partner would splash around in the water with absolutely no abandon. While Danny was not what he would call overly comfortable with having his daughter out there in the deep and wide blue sea (pools, fine, nice controlled bodies of water with distinct absences of undertows and sharks), he appreciated that Steve also took care to teach Grace how to be as safe as possible while making it seem like he was nothing more than an overgrown child. Danny could admit that sometimes his own well-founded concern came across as near irrational tirades, and that it wasn’t always an effective means of communicating. Steve made an excellent buffer for those times Danny would just as soon make Grace don water wings and life jacket like she was three, not eleven.

“You think every day’s a good day for a swim, Grace.”

“That’s because every day _is_.”

“I can see where this is going,” Danny said as he started hustling Grace off the sidewalk onto the lawn. “Don’t you think you’re twisting my arm into going for a swim, not here.”

Grace just giggled and tossed her crooked self-done braids at him. Danny knew he was doomed.

It didn’t occur to him until partway around that Steve and Catherine could be engaging in some adult outdoor activities in the secluded lanai area and garden, hence not hearing the door. His footsteps faltered. God help all of them if they were. It would probably be really hot. It would also probably be hard to say who’d be the most traumatized at witnessing such a thing. He shuddered. Him. He knew Grace was a resilient girl, as young children often are, but he automatically scooted ahead of her in case he had to block her from seeing. No, though, he thought as his momentary and awful what-if faded into logic. He hadn’t seen Catherine’s car anywhere, so he was pretty sure she wasn’t here. Doing things with Steve. The relief he felt was nothing short of ludicrous. 

When they got beachside, it was obvious Steve wasn’t home. That misplaced sense of disappointment cropped up again, or, more accurately, increased since it had never gone away. Steve’s life did not revolve around his. It never had. He stowed his own feelings into that invisible mental compartment he labeled ‘do not open’, even as he continued to scan the ocean’s horizon for signs of his partner.

“Looks like we’ll have to find something else to do today.” Danny bumped Grace’s shoulder. “Water slide at the Hilton? I’m sure some of your friends will be there.”

Normally the idea of meeting up with her friends would have cheered Grace (and made Danny a bit melancholic that she’d rather spend time with them than him), but she didn’t seem to care that much for it today. 

“Okay, Danno.” Grace smiled, but it lacked her usual enthusiasm. “But can we wait here a little while? Maybe he’ll be back.”

“What is this?” Danny lifted her chin and looked her in the eye. “Why are you so hung up on seeing Steve today?”

“I wanted to tell him about what we saw this morning,” she said. “Uncle Steve knows a _lot_ of stuff and he grew up here. I thought maybe he’d know what it was if I described it really good.”

Ah, back to their mysterious, hairy visitor. Danny regretted not calling animal control already. He shook his head and put his hand on the top of Grace’s to wobble it around. 

“You do realize we know other people who grew up here, right?”

“Yeah, but none of them are Uncle Steve.” 

She puppy-dogged him some more, and someday Danny was really going to have to work on fighting that harder. 

“Okay, we’ll stick around for a little while,” Danny said, because today was not that day. He told himself that he did okay when it counted the most, and it wasn’t like Grace was a child that needed a huge amount of discipline. Not on his watch, anyway. “But not too long. Steve might not appreciate uninvited guests using his backyard.”

Grace looked at him for a moment and chewed on her lip, a mannerism she may or may not have picked up from him. She shook her head and said, “Uncle Steve doesn’t mind. He likes it a lot when we come visit him. He told me that once. Didn’t he ever tell you that?”

No. No, Steve had not. Danny wasn’t pathetic because of how warm inside that made him feel. Neither was he a pushover for letting his daughter grab him by the hand and tow him along toward Steve’s small, somewhat rocky stretch of beach. He sure as hell wasn’t sad for sitting around dozing and watching Grace bop along as she examined every shell and smoothed stone on the beach for a very safe, very appropriate necklace project she and her troop of Aloha Girls were doing this week, all the while hoping Steve would come back from wherever he’d gotten to. Nope, not him. He was none of those things. 

Danny was surprised when, after a bit, he pulled out his phone to check the time and realized a solid hour and a half had passed. He sat up from his lounged position in the cool, too-long grass at the sandy beach’s edge and whistled at Grace, who’d wandered a bit too close to Mrs. Panabaker’s property. Last thing he needed was that old busybody coming over and striking up a conversation that would go on far too long and broach subjects about which he had no desire to think about. Like her goiter. Danny shuddered.

“Grace,” Danny called. His voice sounded craggy, like he’d just woken up. Huh. Some father he was; he must have fallen asleep at some point, though he’d swear he’d been awake the whole time. He cleared his throat. “Come on back here.”

Grace, angel that she was, turned toward him without hesitation. But that was where her obedience ended. She didn’t start moving. Danny frowned and was about to shout at her again, when he noticed the look on her face. She wasn’t wilfully disobeying him. She was staring at something off to her left, at the copse of trees shielding Steve’s place from the Panabaker property. 

“Grace?”

“Dad,” Grace said, almost too quietly to be heard. “Can you see it?”

“See …?”

The question died on Danny’s lips, as he turned his head the direction that had ensnared Grace’s attention. He couldn’t actually see anything, but he felt a serious case of déjà vu setting in. The chances were beyond astronomical. He clambered to his feet and jogged over to Grace, not attempting to be stealthy at all. If what Grace was talking about was what he thought she was talking about, he figured the noisier he was, the better. He reached for his weapon, but pulled out his cell. Yeah, weapon locked in trunk. That was okay, phone was better.

“I am calling animal control on your ass,” Danny shouted at the shrubbery. 

“Danno.”

Hey, for all he knew it was a bona fide ass out there, and a stalkery one at that. Danny reached Grace’s side and caught a blur of a dark tan color and legs that were somehow short and gangly at the same time. For a split second, he thought _Steve_ (they were at his house, after all), but then he was pretty sure Steve didn’t have a matted tail and there was nothing short about the guy. He shot Grace a frustrated look after she shushed him.

“You’re scaring it away.” Grace dropped the impressive seashell and stone collection she’d amassed in the makeshift basket she’d made with the front of her tank top to tug on the hem of Danny’s shirt and point. “Quick, take a picture!”

Danny did not take a picture. He searched for animal control’s number instead, though he had no idea how he was going to report this without sounding like he was a man with a limited number of marbles. In the end, he doubted he succeeded, really only remembered saying things like “unidentifiable furbeast” and “no, I’m not on ice, _brah_ ” and “I know Bigfoot doesn’t come from Hawai’i” as Grace kept tugging at him and the trees shuddered a few more times before they went still as the animal vacated the premises. 

“I think it likes us,” Grace said solemnly, after Danny had ended the call and stood there with the phone pressed against his forehead. “Why else would it follow us here?”

“Just what I need, another Neanderthal animal trailing after me,” Danny muttered. 

“Hmm, I wonder…” Grace had a thoughtful expression on her face for a second. Then she fell to her knees, attention abruptly off the mystery creature. “Can you help me pick up the shells that Lucy and the others wan … uhm, that I collected for the art project?”

Oh, God. Suddenly Danny’s attention wasn’t on the bizarre animal anymore either. He just knew there was no art project. He imagined a troop of way-too-preteen-to-be-boycrazy-girls talking crazily but not about boys. About Steve. Danny was screwed. This was a conversation he would gladly hand off to Rachel – he doubted very much that Grace wanted to have a major heart-to-heart with him about the crush she had on his partner, anyway. After all, she could have no idea how much they had in common in that regard.

“Was this another reason why you were so set on coming to Steve’s, Grace?” 

Grace’s cheeks turned pink and she shook her head too fiercely for it to be anything other than affirmation. 

“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Danny said. He was, but he didn’t want her to be. He squatted carefully, bearing most of his weight on the left leg. “You don’t have to talk to me about it, either, if you don’t want to. You can, though, but it’s up to you. And I won’t tell Steve.”

“Okay,” Grace whispered. “Thanks.”

They gathered up the scattered shells and a few gleaming, polished rocks in uncomfortable silence that Danny hated. 

“So, I think it’s obvious Steve’s not coming home anytime soon. Know what you want to do for the rest of the afternoon?” he said at last.

“Yeah,” she said, a gleam back in her eye. “I think I do.”

H50H50H50 

“So that was how I ended up spending the afternoon being dragged around the zoo, looking for anything that might resemble our four-legged peeping tom and getting chastised for not getting a picture of it for comparison, at every wrong animal.” Danny was exhausted just reliving the weird weekend he’d had. He picked up his coffee mug and took a sip, scowling at its ice cold temperature. He frowned at the cup and set it on Steve’s desk. “At least it was educational, but shit – why is it I can’t have a normal visit with my daughter, huh? There’s always something.”

Steve stared at him with eyes that had a slight glaze to them. So did Chin and Kono. He took umbrage with that. It wasn’t like he’d embellished the story at all. He’d gone for a straight telling, and, well, Chin and Kono had both shared _their_ weekend stories; Danny couldn’t help it if his was more involved than a trip to the hardware store and surfing on the North Shore, respectively. He doubted anything could top one strange animal sighting, let alone two, so he supposed in that regard their stunned fish faces weren’t completely unreasonable.

“Did you,” Kono started hesitantly. She slid her gaze first to Chin, then Steve. She sighed as if in resignation. “So, did you find out what it was?”

“No, in fact, we did not. I would have laid good money on Lorenzo the llama, but Grace said he wasn’t right. She got the best look at the thing both times.” Danny shrugged. The only reason he cared to know what it was in case he ever encountered the thing again he could give animal control the most accurate information. He was a diligent citizen like that. “Long story short…”

“Too late,” someone said, voice mumbled too quietly to discern the source.

“Funny. That’s adorable, really,” Danny said, glaring at each of his team in turn. He’d put money on that the snark had been laid down by Chin, primarily because it was the least expected out of him. The quiet ones were the ones to keep an eye on. “Long story short, don’t any of you be surprised if Grace hits you up for information about local wildlife. Especially you, McGarrett. She seems to be under the impression you’re a veritable font of knowledge.”

Danny pointed at his partner. It took some flexing of that inner muscle he was building up to ignore how cute Steve looked when he was befuddled, but he managed to not let the fondness overrule the stern teasing image he wanted to project. He also refrained from mentioning how that look might be part of why Grace had a crush on the beautiful jerk. Again, because he wasn’t sure he could maintain his own ridiculous issue if that subject was broached; he was predictable when it came to that kind of thing. As far as he was concerned, he’d been lucky to have not broadcast his inappropriate feelings already and he had zero idea why it was becoming more difficult all of a sudden. It was as if realizing his daughter had a childish thing for Steve was a catalyst for his own inner pre-teen to rear its ugly head. Regardless of the soap opera goings-on of his mind, he had no intention of ever mentioning Grace’s crush unless it got out of hand, and certainly not with witnesses.

“Grace has very discerning taste,” Steve said, all charming smugness now. “Has anyone else noticed that?”

“I have,” Chin said, ever helpful.

“Jeez. As much as it pains me to say this about my own beloved daughter, I think having you and those floppy-haired One Direction schmucks up on a pedestal actually speaks to the fact that she has questionable reasoning skills at this very young, very impressionable stage in her life.”

The second Danny said it, he realized he’d just told the world about Grace’s infatuation with his annoyingly handsome partner, which was pure class, seeing as he hadn’t even bothered addressing it with her yet. Hopefully no one noticed.

“You hurt me, Daniel.” The corners of Steve’s mouth tipped upward a couple of times as he obviously tried not to smile. “Your words are like a dagger to my heart.”

“What heart, Tin Man?” Danny asked, as his own heart beat that stupid rhythm it seemed to enjoy these days. Now he found himself trying to ignore the amused expressions all three of his team were sporting. 

“Aw, I think it’s cute Grace has a cru…” Kono started to say.

Panic prompted a fit of violent coughing from Danny, which was not the most well-thought-out diversionary tactic in the world. It seemed to work, though. He glared at Kono as Chin and Steve both rushed out of their chairs toward him, pounding him on the back with undue force. He motioned his hand sharply across his throat. Kono stared back, eyebrows furrowed for a second, then she shrugged. 

“…crush on One Direction,” Kono finished. “They’re better than Bieber, I guess? Mainlander music is _lolo_.” 

“Technically One Direction is from Great Britain, not the mainland, and that lousy Bieber is Canadian,” Danny said, then hung his head a little in shame for knowing that. “Neither of which is the point.”

“There was a point?” Chin asked drily. 

“Danny always has a point.” Steve clapped Danny on the back one last time. His hand lingered on Danny’s shoulder, squeezed gently as he delivered his punch line. “It’s just often buried under a mountain of words and you kinda have to dig to find it.”

That would sting a lot more if Danny didn’t know there was a grain of truth to it, and if he weren’t suddenly focused on the warmth of Steve’s stupid hand on his shoulder. There were times when he wasn’t sure he was alone in this whole unresolved sexual tension thing, which just made it all the more frustrating for him. Those times were few and far between, at least these days, what with most of Steve’s time being occupied by someone other than him, and not that they had ever been anything but figments of his imagination anyway. He took a breath when Steve finally let his hand drop and headed back around to his side of the desk.

“I love how you all gang up on me on a Monday morning.” Danny shook his head and made a sad face. “A Monday following the weirdest weekend I’ve had in a while, I might add. It’s just mean. You’re all terrible people. I don’t know why I put up with you.”

They all smiled at him, unrepentant and so much like family it made him not mind the abuse. It came from a good place, the best. Danny waved a hand, giving up. He knew when he was beat, and he was more than ready to get the subject off of him and onto something else. Even if that something wasn’t a particularly nice thing to think about. Still, three-fourths of them had spilled details.

“But, hey, enough about me. Bringing it all back around, what about you, McGarrett?”

“What about me, what?” Steve said, looking baffled as he plopped back into his desk chair. 

“We shared our weekend adventures, some more exciting than others, so what did you get up to? Grace and I hung out at your house for a bit,” Danny said. He shrugged to make it seem like he didn’t care all that much. Truthfully, he didn’t want to hear about Steve-n-Cath’s weekend together, but he found himself bringing it up. Like a self-inflicted wound was more endurable. “No, wait, let me guess. You spent all weekend hiking the rainforest.”

Steve looked at him with the oddest expression on his face. He looked almost uncertain, if Danny were pressed to put a name to it. Or maybe it was deer-in-headlights. He didn’t have the patience to sort out what it might mean, if anything. It wasn’t like he didn’t already assign meaning to things that had none when it came to Steve. His partner just might not have had enough coffee yet this morning, and meanwhile Danny kept heaping on his own misery.

“No doubt with Catherine at your side, right, and you probably made it seem like the epitome of romance? Blisters and swarming bugs and humidity and all.”

Throughout it the whole rambling thing, Steve’s expression didn’t change much. He paused for a second, but then nodded slowly.

“Yep,” Steve said. “You got it in one, partner. I was hiking all weekend.”

For some strange reason, Steve sounded more like he was asking a question of his own than answering Danny’s, but before he could press the issue, the phone rang and their weekend roundup was tossed aside in favor of chasing the bad guys _du jour_ across the islands for the next week and a half.

H50H50H50

It might have occurred to Danny to wonder about the perplexed look on Catherine’s face when he casually mentioned how her weekend hiking date with Steve must have gone much better than his own petroglyph adventure had since neither of them had come back from it with broken limb or rope burn, if he hadn’t been more occupied with accepting the intelligence she supplied to help Five-0 take down some slimeball money launderers.

H50H50H50

They were the last ones on the beach as far as the eye could see, not that it was a huge feat. There’d been maybe thirty people total show up throughout the course of the day, and never that many all at the same time. To be honest, Danny hadn’t expected such a sparse crowd at Maleakahana despite hearing that it was a nice, generally quiet spot – he’d thought it would turn out to be one of those places travel magazines lauded as private and a favorite of the locals, thereby sending tourists in droves to kill exactly what made it such a great place to visit. He had picked it as a destination with the hope his pessimism wouldn’t be proven true. For once, it hadn’t been. He had been in no mood to deal with masses of people, and the day of peace had soothed him into a much more reasonable human being.

That had as much to do with his companion as the quietude of the place, Danny thought, smiling at Grace as she shook her towel to disperse most of the sand. She haphazardly folded it and tried to stuff it into the oversized beach bag, muttering under her breath all the while. After a few moments of wrestling with the towel, she gave up trying to be neat and just shoved until it fit in. Danny’s grin got wider when she tossed him a frustrated look. There were many, many things he’d gotten wrong in his life, but Grace was not and never would be one of them. 

He was exhausted after a long couple of weeks, weeks during which he’d barely had the chance to see Grace, and his daughter was a smart girl. She hadn’t balked at the idea of a more restful outing, had even gone so far as to sound scarily like her mother when she said a picnic on a beach would be quite lovely. And though a change for their usually higher energy activities, it had been. They’d made their own food – it always tasted better when it was homemade, Grace said, and goodness knew these days she was probably exposed to a lot of pretentious, overly fancy fare to know what she was talking about. Neither he nor Rachel had ever been much for cooking, anyway, and he’d heard the menu Grace got to experience often now that Rachel had the funds for a chef. 

Sometimes there was just nothing like a pastrami on marble rye with mustard and a big kosher dill on the side, though. Even if it had been light on the meat and cheese compared to his usual preferences, built with his heart health in mind, Danny didn’t think he’d ever had a better sandwich at any deli or diner back home; not even Katz’s had a thing on the love Grace put into hers. Because it had been light on filling, though, he felt like he hadn’t eaten all day. 

“Do you have anything in mind for dinner, monkey?” Danny asked, as he balled up his own towel and shoved it into the bag on top of Grace’s. “Or am I the only one about to faint from starvation?”

“No, I’m hungry, too,” Grace said. Her stomach growled loudly and she laughed as she looked first down at it, then up at Danny. “ _Really_ hungry. I don’t even care what, I just want food.”

Danny chuckled at how readily his little nutritionist-in-the-making gave up health-consciousness when she was famished. Grace definitely had a lot of her mother in her but, fortunately she also had a lot of him in the mix. And though the beach didn’t have a public lifeguard, the ocean had been calm enough he hadn’t been able to come up with a good excuse to say no to swimming. To Grace’s delight and his own surprise, they had spent a huge chunk of the day in the water. It wasn’t like they’d done a marathon swim like the ones they liked to joke Steve did, but his muscles felt well exercised and the energy he’d used had long ago burned off the pastrami. 

“I like the way you think. We’ll find a place on the way home, whatever strikes our interest.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

He hurried to gather up the rest of their stuff, not just because he was hungry but because the shadows were getting longer and the beach now seemed eerily rather than peacefully quiet. He wasn’t a nervous man by nature. Cautious, absolutely. He was hustling Grace toward the car through a particularly foliage-covered patch of path when he experienced a familiar ghost of a feeling, the kind that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It was ninety percent honed cop instinct and ten percent plain old paranoia, the feeling that something wasn’t quite right coupled with the sensation of being watched. He shot a look around, and didn’t see anything. Of course, if he were a criminal intent on mugging or murder, he wouldn’t be out in the open.

“Daddy, is something wrong?” Grace whispered, obviously having also acquired an acute sense of observation. 

“No. No, I don’t think so, honey, let’s just get this stuff in the car,” Danny said as he popped the trunk and hefted the heavy beach bag into it. He surreptitiously retrieved his back-up piece as Grace struggled to lift the heavy beach bag, tucked it into the back of his board shorts and hoped that it would stay put in the looser waistband. He ushered her into the passenger seat, then crouched by the door. He leaned over and put the keys in the ignition. “Grace, I need to go back for something. Do me a favor and wait here, huh? Lock the doors and don’t open them except for me.”

“Daddy?” Her eyes were huge and her face had lost every trace of happiness. “You said nothing was wrong.”

“I don’t think there is. I just want to make sure, okay? I’ll be right back, I promise you.”

Grace bobbed her head up and down, but she still looked petrified. He was doing this all wrong and he knew it. Still, that niggling feeling of being watched lingered even now. He gave his daughter a wink and a smile and made sure she relaxed a smidgen before he clicked the car door shut gently. He stood there, hand on the glass and waited for her to flick the locks. He smiled at her again when she touched his fingers through the glass. She would stay put and he wasn’t going to be gone more than a few minutes.

If he weren’t a cop, he’d have climbed in after Grace and gotten them both out of there. As it was, he couldn’t in good conscience leave without verifying his instinct was correct. Danny glanced at the spattering of cars and trucks still in the parking lot, tilted his head at the distant sound of voices from the campgrounds. No, he couldn’t walk away if there was even the slightest possibility there was something more to his feeling than oddness. He reached for his phone, belatedly realizing he wasn’t exactly wearing pants. The phone was probably in the trunk right now. So much for getting someone (Steve, who was he kidding) on the line in case this went sideways. 

He heard it, at his left shoulder and froze for just a second, long enough for whoever was hidden there to notice even though he tried to keep moving. He heard a loud, huffing snort – sneeze? – and the hibiscus – or whatever it was – shrub rustled. Danny pivoted, hand at the back of his shorts, wrapping his fingers around the handle of his gun. It was too late for stealth.

“Detective Danny Williams, Five-0,” he said, calm but firm. He pulled his weapon free, kept it aimed at the sand. “I’m going to need you to step out of there right now.”

No one came forward. He could hear heavy, rapid breathing, and then a repeated humming sound. Danny closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. He was going to be very embarrassed if this turned out to be a pair of horny teenagers or something. Better safe than sorry, though.

“All right, I’m coming to you then. I’m armed.”

He parted the greenery and stepped into déjà vu all over again. He’d know that goofy, hairy face anywhere, though he’d actually managed to forget about the animal planet weekend. Danny squawked and nearly dropped his gun. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he would have been fine facing a thug, but a weird, giant, breathing Muppet made him lose his shit. The thing, definitely quadruped, reared back, hummed a few times and then switched to a whinny like a cross between a clown horn and a donkey as it bolted as fast as its awkward legs would let it. 

Stunned, he stood there and watched it go. He didn’t exactly know what he was supposed to do – chase it down? It didn’t look dangerous, but he didn’t even know what _it_ was, though Danny instantly thought about Lorenzo the llama again. He should probably warn those people in the campgrounds that there be beasts in the woods. More than anything, he wondered what in the hell was going on in his life. That thing, it was the same damn thing that had stalked him and Grace the weekend before last. He’d know its stupid face anywhere. His detective mind continued to spin as he trotted back to the car for his phone. He hadn’t seen it when Grace stayed with her mother and he was damned sure he would have heard from Rachel or Grace if it had shown up around them. 

It was farfetched, but maybe the thing really was stalking him and Grace, only when they were together.

“Open up, Gracie,” he shouted when he was a few steps away from the car.

Grace did one better. She dashed from the Camaro and ran toward him, clearly misinterpreting his agitation. She threw herself into his arms, shaking like a leaf.

“Danno, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, it’s okay. It’s nothing.” Danny wrapped her in a tight hug, rubbing his hands up and down her back. After a moment, he pulled back and held her by her shoulders. He smiled. “Well, not nothing. Remember that thing we saw a couple of weeks ago at my place, then at Steve’s?”

Grace’s eyes got wide from wonder rather than fear as she connected the dots.

“It’s _here_? Right now?” She looked beyond Danny’s shoulder and started to move away. “I don’t see it. Did you get a picture this time?”

“I scared it away, and no I did not get a picture,” Danny said, not about to confess that as far as being scared went, he and the thing had been on fairly equal footing. He scowled at Grace’s disappointed face. “Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t even have my phone, so how could I take a picture, huh? Right now, I need to call animal control again. This is unbelievable. I can’t even begin to tell you how statistically improbable seeing this thing again is.”

“D’you suppose it’s been here all day?” Grace continued to stretch her neck and look for the stupid thing. “It’s like I said, Danno. It likes us, and I think it must be lonely if it followed us all the way here.”

Danny pulled the keys from the ignition, opened the trunk and dug around for his phone. He shot his inquisitive daughter a stern frown. Grace looked fascinated, which should make him feel better and did not.

“Oh, no. No, I know that look. It’s an animal, Grace, it doesn’t have feelings like we do. It is not lonely and it does not like us.” He held up a hand when it looked like Grace was going to interrupt him. “Do I look like Grizzly Adams to you?”

“What’s Grizzly Adams?” Grace asked, with a confused frown on her face. 

“Grizzly Adams is a pop culture reference you couldn’t possibly understand, I realize that now and apologize for even bringing it up. We’ll do a marathon sometime, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to report sighting that beast, and then we’re going to dinner.”

“Danno.”

No amount of puppy eyes would dissuade him this time. He gestured Grace back to the passenger seat as he finally pulled his cell free. He made the call to animal control, for whatever it was worth – they clearly hadn’t bothered to handle this situation a couple of weeks ago. With the assurance that his duty was fulfilled, he climbed behind the wheel and glanced over to Grace, who was staring intently out her window.

“What’re you…” he started and then noticed what had gotten her attention.

“Isn’t that Uncle Steve’s truck?” Grace asked. “If he’s here, you can go find him and then find the animal and maybe catch it.”

It was Steve’s truck. It so totally was and Danny’s issue was that his brain suddenly became filled with images of Steve and Catherine in some secluded part of the park, making out and more. He wouldn’t be exaggerating if he said his appetite got quashed just a little. 

“No, I don’t think it could be his,” Danny said.

“Why not?”

“Because if that were Steve’s truck, he’d have seen us and come over to say hi, don’t you think?”

Danny knew he should feel guilty for lying his lying face off, but all he could do was thank every deity he could think of that Steve and Catherine had kept to themselves. Then he wondered when he’d become the guy who felt irrationally angry at someone else for having the one he wanted. Because he was. Because he would be okay to never see them together again in social settings, and oh, _shit_ , he probably didn’t need to be worried about Grace’s crush while his own raged on. 

As if the animal reinvasion hadn’t been enough to make his skin itch.

“Oh, yeah. That’s true,” Grace said. Her stomach growled again, serving as a reminder for both of them and all else seemed to erase from Grace’s head. “Let’s go eat!”

Unwilling to take the chance they might yet run into the happy couple, Danny started the Camaro, put it in reverse and got the hell out of there.

H50H50H50

Danny spent the rest of the weekend on the lookout for wildlife.

And Steve.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied, it's done today. :)

Neither the nightly news nor the newspaper had made mention of mass panic or even slight curiosity over the weekend at Maleakahana and Danny didn’t get it. This was a damn small island and there’d been plenty of people still at the campgrounds if not on the beach when he’d had his latest involuntary encounter with a hairy part of nature. He’d thought for sure his story would be corroborated by multiple witnesses this time, that someone else besides him and Grace would have had to have seen the strange walking Muppet-carpet. He scowled angrily at his computer screen, finding not even the smallest blurb on the Star Advertiser about it. 

There were two possible conclusions he could draw at this point. Either he and Gracie really were the targets, so to speak, of this creature or he was one banana short of a bunch like the folks at animal control probably thought by now; he’d gotten a not-so-vague impression they believed he was pranking them the last time he called. So, yeah, targeted by a creature that probably had a brain the size of a tennis ball, or cracked. He didn’t like those options much at all and could barely decide which was the lesser of two evils, but had to go with the former by sheer virtue of him not believing for a second _Grace_ could be _non compos mentis_ , and she’d seen the thing first.

Anyway, everyone knew there was only room for one bugfuck nutbar in a partnership, and Steve had sealed that deal from minute one.

Danny sighed and closed down the browser completely, giving in to the fact he wasn’t going to find the news report he needed to confirm he wasn’t out of his head and vowing not to check again in another hour like he’d been doing consistently since Saturday night. He glanced across the way toward Steve’s office, catching the guy staring off into space with a completely vacant look on his face. Steve was anything but vacant, most of the time. Danny furrowed his eyebrows. He had once counted himself as something of an expert at reading Steve’s weirdness. These days, Steve was being weird in a way Danny couldn’t define, case in point the thousand-yard stare without any evidence of trauma. 

That wasn’t so unusual, really, though a year ago it might have been. A year ago, there wouldn’t be the continental drift between them that was coincidentally shaped a lot like Catherine and he swore most days he wasn’t bitter about that. Really. If anyone deserved happiness, it was Steve. The point was, though, the years of practice Danny had at reading Steve could only result in partial accuracy anymore, because of the Catherine drift. It made him kind of ill (not bitter, nope, Steve happy with someone else was a-okay), if he thought about it too much, so he made the sincerest of efforts not to. Most of the time.

The biggest problem he was having today was that along with his beastly stalker, he’d also seen Steve’s truck over the weekend. He knew Steve would have had to have spotted the Camaro just as easily, and yet when the customary exchange of weekend stories came up with the team – his again complete with strange animal sightings – Steve had said bupkes about being at the same damned beach he and Grace had gone to. Or any beach. Actually, somehow Steve had escaped without sharing with the class again. 

The not sharing of mundane, non-critical information thing was new and indefinably _weird_. 

Danny had never been one for holding back, okay. If he had a trademark, it would probably be that his mouth was always five steps ahead of what everyone else was thinking. Yet he found himself hesitant to bring his concerns to Steve directly. He had no idea why, though it might have something to do with worrying the first words out of his mouth would be, “I know what you did last weekend” which was too many shades of Jennifer Love Hewitt for it to be anything like all right, really, or, worse, “Thank you for not coming over to say hi the other day” which Steve would undoubtedly take the wrong way. He couldn’t know the right way, in that it would have been torture for Danny to actually lay eyes on the happy, stunningly gorgeous couple and hence with his relief and all.

No. Danny wanted to know what was going on with Steve, if partly to distract himself from his four-legged stalker problem, but asking him directly was out of the question. He could get Kono to do it for him, but then she’d ask him too many questions. Chin would also. There was only one real option, if he wanted to unravel Steve’s latest and greatest goof behavior. In lieu of barging in and waving his hands to break through that blank expression Steve was sporting he was quite possibly going to make the stupidest, most self-sabotaging move possible. He picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?” Catherine answered.

“Catherine, hey, hi, it’s Danny. Danny Williams,” Danny said, then briefly closed his eyes at how stupid he sounded already. His brain screamed mistake, _mistake_. It was too late. “Uh.”

She knew who he was. There was no reason for him to act like a teenager calling to ask someone out for the first time. God, this was pretty much the opposite, and why had he thought this was a good idea? Oh, right, he hadn’t ever thought that and Jesus, it was cowardly not to just go ask Steve what his problem was. His fear of being _lolo_ , as they said around these parts, was rapidly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was losing his mind, but it had nothing to do with his mystery bi-weekly visitor. 

“I know who it is,” Catherine snapped. “What do you want?”

Once upon a time, someone had told him he had a tone. He’d denied it, even though he knew he was a man of many tones. Right now, Catherine had a tone and it wasn’t the pleasant one to which he was accustomed. Danny thought she sounded testy. Disagreeable. Possibly unfriendly. He had no idea why, but it was probably Steve’s fault. He couldn’t help but feel some sort of misdirected vindication about that, though it also made the conversation he was about to voluntarily start even more awkward. In fact, maybe he should skip it. He could conjecture that they’d had a spat.

“Everything okay?” Danny asked cautiously.

“Really? You. _You’re_ calling to ask me that?”

Pissed. Pissed was the word he’d been looking for. Catherine sounded pissed as hell and uninterested in communicating. If Danny were smart, he’d end this before he began. He glanced over at Steve, who was still lost in his own world, and knew he was just stupid enough to push forward for his partner’s sake. His brain was already coming up with scenarios that might result in Steve looking like he did and Catherine angry. He didn’t need the confirmation, except that petty part of him that he wasn’t proud of which did.

“Yeah, I am. I noticed Steve’s been off lately and it seemed maybe it was a personal issue. You know how he is about that kind of stuff – it’s like pulling teeth to get him to talk. So I thought I’d avoid the inevitable tug of war and ask you if you know what’s up with him, give me a baseline on how to approach him.”

The dead silence on the other end was so prolonged he thought the call had dropped, by crappy signal or intentionally. He even went so far as to pull the phone away from his ear to stare at the screen to make sure she was still there. He put it back to his ear just in time to hear Catherine’s reply.

“You know, I’ve always thought you were annoying at times,” Catherine said coldly, “but I never took you for a genuine asshole.”

Then she did hang up on him, before he had the chance to formulate half of a response. Danny found, as he sat there dumbfounded and with an expression on his face that probably matched Steve’s, he had no idea where to begin in trying to figure out Catherine’s sudden change in temperament, more specifically her hostility toward him. He knew his personality quirks weren’t for everyone and he wasn’t bothered so much about the comment about him being annoying, but he had zero clue what he’d done to her in order to jump from annoying to asshole. He’d call her back to ask her if he thought she’d pick up the phone for him again. He’d played glutton for punishment plenty enough today, and he doubted he’d come up with some great intuitive leap on his own; it wasn’t like he had anything to do with whatever fight she’d possibly had with Steve. That left him to brush it aside as one more unexplainable event in his life.

“Okay,” Danny muttered. “Apparently weirdness is a contagious disease now.”

He reopened the webpage for the Star Advertiser once more, choosing the lesser of two evils to fixate on until another major crime cropped up to occupy his time.

H50H50H50

Danny shifted in the chair, wondered grouchily why waiting rooms everywhere were equipped with the most uncomfortable furniture imaginable. It seemed cruel and unusual punishment to inflict backbreaking seats on people who were, by virtue of being there in the first place, suffering already. He glanced guiltily at the father-daughter duo sitting across the room from him, the worry on their faces the exact opposite of his own simple exasperation for his partner. Sure, he hoped nothing was broken, but ultimately amusement had topped concern about thirty seconds after the incident that dragged them both down to HMC occurred.

It had been a moment of gracelessness so unusual that Danny was still amazed at how it had gone down. He’d grown reluctantly accustomed to Steve’s recklessness, more than expected that one day his partner’s shenanigans would get the guy killed. He publicly kvetched about how Steve would kill _him_ one day, but he knew that if it came down to it Steve would toss himself in front of a bullet before letting anything happen to Danny. This was an unspoken truth, one that Danny knew didn’t mean as much as he was really starting to want it to. That selfless attitude was one Steve would employ for anyone close to him, not just Danny. He got that. He wasn’t so big of a sap these days that he thought there was actually anything more to it. The point was, when it came to Steve, Danny was as prepared as a person could get for blood and mayhem. 

He turned to face the corridor where they’d taken Steve for the scans when a doctor came for the man and the girl, trying to give them at least a token gesture of privacy. Danny couldn’t avoid noticing, though, the relief that overtook the prior worry as the doctor spoke briefly. He didn’t know them, but it didn’t matter. Though this current situation was laughable, sure, he understood the nauseating concern, more than he’d like. He was genuinely glad for the apparent happy outcome, and exchanged a half smile with the man when he and his daughter hurried out of the room, presumably to go see whomever it was who was hurt or sick. 

Speaking of hurt or sick, his eyes lit on a familiar figure hobbling down the hall. Danny considered it the better part of valor that he kept the grin off of his face as Steve approached. A torn ACL was no laughing matter. He’d been there, he’d done that. Still, seeing Steve’s, beautiful, miserable face and ruffled up hair brought the whole thing back into the forefront of his mind. He chomped on the inside of his left cheek for a moment to gain some control as he stood and met Steve partway.

“You going to live?” Danny asked, intentionally keeping his voice mild. “No need to amputate?”

“Don’t, Danny,” Steve said. “Just don’t. He said it’s barely a tear.”

“Hurts like a bitch, though, and don’t try to be a tough guy and say it doesn’t. And I can see they haven’t given you enough for the pain yet, grouchy.” He raised an eyebrow at Steve’s extra super grumpy face. He lifted his hands. “Hey, I know how this feels, remember?”

Steve looked mollified, but Danny knew that was going to be temporary, because, _come on_ , he could not ignore the punch line of all of this forever. He snagged the slip of paper from his partner’s fingers easily, since most of his motor function was needed to keep hold of the crutches. Yeah, so this injury might be slightly worse than when Danny had aggravated his. The empathy he had for the guy was genuine. It wasn’t quite “if Steve bleeds, Danny bleeds”, but, honestly, if the injury had been anything bloodier or from actual mayhem, Danny would not be able to swear on a stack of bibles that that wasn’t true. He was starting to get pathetic, mentally, where no one could know it except him. And, oh, boy, did he know it.

“We’ll fill the script and then I’ll take you home.”

“Doc said I can work.” Steve winced as they rounded a corner and he didn’t quite adjust his movements correctly. “Light duty.”

“Hmm.” Danny made a show of reading the paper. “Says here you’re to rest it today and tomorrow, then maybe light duty if the swelling’s gone down and you can put a little pressure on it. You’d think you’d fallen on your head, not your knee.”

“The doctor doesn’t know me. I know my limits better than he does,” Steve said with a pout.

“Fortunately, I know both you and your limits. We’ll just pick up your … oh. Only Aleve? You’re hopping around so dramatically I was expecting at least codeine.”

“Oh, shut up. I told you before, it’s not that bad.”

“You want me to call Catherine to come give you some TLC for the next couple of days?” Danny asked, unable to stop some of the bitterness from bleeding into his tone.

If Steve weren’t already hobbling on crutches, Danny would have said he stumbled for a second, and the expression on his face when he tossed Danny a look was pained. Which made sense, on account of him being in pain and all. 

“Trust me, Cath has no interest in playing nursemaid,” Steve said.

This also made sense, because Catherine didn’t strike Danny as the type to coddle. He bobbed his head and walked alongside Steve as they headed to the hospital pharmacy to pick up the Aleve, paying an ungodly fifteen dollars for a bottle that would cost five at the drug store. 

“I knew you wouldn’t be a cheap date,” Danny said as they finally left the hospital building. He pointed the direction he’d parked. Apparently he was content on digging himself into deep holes, constantly bringing up subjects that he didn’t really want to bring up. “Fifteen bucks. Jeez.”

Steve just stared at him like he’d grown another head, and Danny wondered if he’d been mistaken and his partner was actually doped to the gills right now. He shook it off, and grinned a bit when Steve automatically headed for the driver’s side despite the crutches, then tried to course correct without being obvious. He hated that it took an injury to Steve’s right leg to permit him to drive his own car, except the part that he relished it. He didn’t bother hiding his amusement from Steve, who glared harder and harder at him. He waited till Steve got himself situated in the passenger seat and buckled in before he picked up where they’d left off about the injury itself.

“It’s a good thing your leg’s not that bad, actually. Imagine how tremendously embarrassing it would be to require surgery from slipping on a pineapple wedge and kersplatting right there in the Rainbow parking lot,” Danny said, smile growing bigger by the second. 

Steve reached over and clamped a hand on Danny’s forearm, held on tight until he glanced over.

“You mention how it happened to anyone, and I will end you,” Steve broke his long silence to say, in that love-filled hatey tone of his. 

Danny shook Steve’s hand off (though, sure, he possibly enjoyed the contact more than he had the right to) and laughed as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot. He thought maybe this once he’d spend money on a ham and pineapple pizza and bring it to Steve himself just to see the indignant reaction. 

As long as he didn’t see Cath’s Stingray in the driveway when he got there.

H50H50H50

Catherine wasn’t there.

Steve’s indignant reaction was adorable, adorable perfection.

Danny was so screwed.

H50H50H50

He had known he’d been set up the second Rachel opened the door, her lips tilted ever so slightly at the corners in a way he recognized from their married years. It was a look she had sported (and still did, clearly, and he took some comfort in knowing Stan was seeing it more than he was these days) when she’d accomplished some kind of end around. Sometimes it would take time before the whole thing came into focus, and other times, Danny thought ruefully as he exited the movie theater and squinted against the comparatively brighter light of the lobby, it was much more obvious. He should have known there’d be some kind of penalty for a bonus weekend with his daughter – and truthfully, he thought the pros outweighed the cons, even if he’d had to endure an hour and a half of a tween’s idea of fine cinema.

He tossed the remnants of his popcorn, which he’d hoped would distract him for longer than it actually had, in the large receptacle by the door. He loitered just outside, and figured he had only a few minutes to erase all traces of disgust from his face, something he had to do for Grace’s sake. It wasn’t her fault she was too young to understand the travesty they’d not only witnessed but had voluntarily paid money to see. The idea that a bunch of kids under the age of twenty-five had lived long enough and achieved such pinnacles of success to merit a bio-pic was irritating. Also irritating was that he had One Direction in his head now. 

Oh, no, he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt there was no _way_ Rachel had called around and just could not find another parent to chaperone Grace and her little friends on this Saturday matinee outing. It was a small price, but still, it was so _Rachel_ of her to make him sit through that drivel, like even after all this time she had to make sure there was at least some pain with his joy. Screw that and screw her, he was going to think of it the same way he thought of every stupid horribly schlocky movie his daughter picked out – as an opportunity to get to know this rapidly-approaching-teenagedness-Grace better and cope with the inevitable changes.

He saw Rita, Lucy’s mom, among the crowd of predominantly pre and teen girls, each and every one of them jabbering on about one floppy-haired singer or another. She rolled her eyes at Danny comically, as if she didn’t know he’d witnessed her singing along at various points throughout the movie. He might have been the only patron in the theater to not do that. 

“I appreciate you filling in for Rach,” Rita said, eyeing the ten eleven-year-olds who were doing their best to keep in constant motion and avoiding acknowledgement of the adults. Her head bobbed as she silently counted. “I’m sure that was thrilling for you.”

“Trust me when I say that while it was awful, it was not the worst movie I’ve been dragged to. And now I know what I need to do if I want to join a boy band,” Danny said wryly. He’d been more into hip-hop when he was a kid, to the point he thought he was a badass gansta. It was embarrassing to think about now. “I’m not sure I could make the look work, though.”

“Aw, trust me, you’d be fine.” Rita gave him a long look and a wink. “Wouldn’t be a boy band so much as a man band, though. Think you could convince that partner of yours to join? Maybe Lieutenant Kelly too?”

Danny laughed and shook his head as he imagined the twin expressions of horror Steve and Chin would pull at the suggestion. On the other hand, he immediately conjured up the image of Steve in tight leather pants. He engaged in that mental fantasy for approximately two seconds, all he’d allow himself on Grace’s time and more than he should allow himself ever. He swore her budding pre-teen behavior was rubbing off on him; all of her giddiness over the cute boys in the movie had to be manifesting in him as an increased fixation on Steve. It wasn’t that he was falling down that rabbit hole on his own. Nope. He shook himself out of his leather-clad Steve reverie.

“Too bad none of us can carry a tune.”

Rita ducked her head, then shook it and mumbled something Danny thought sounded suspiciously like, “Any of you can carry _me_ instead.”

Danny gave her a sidelong glance, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge the remark until she made a growly noise at the back of her throat to go along with the words he now understood hadn’t been misheard, and then he felt his ears burn so hotly he knew they were bright pink. He’d like to say he was smooth the same way Steve thought he was, but truthfully, he’d always been awkward in … awkward situations. He could see precocious little Lucy’s resemblance to her mom now more than ever; he thought life in that household was probably very interesting for Rita’s son and husband.

“Anything else my ex volunteered me to do with this group of troublemakers?” Danny asked, clumsily bringing the attention back to why they were there. “Please don’t say mani-pedis, because that is absolutely something she would fail to mention.”

He wasn’t going to mention himself the number of times he’d painted Grace’s toes for her. That was _different_ , he was fulfilling parental obligations those times. Something about nail salons set him on edge, potentially the idea of some underpaid woman kneeling in front of other people who tossed money around to make their toes pretty.

“Nope, you’re off the hook. Mani-pedis are not on the list of approved group activities for the Aloha Girls, even on unofficial time.” Rita rolled her eyes again. “The movie was pushing it as it is. Anyway, we’re supposed to get them home before dinner, and they didn’t bring enough money to do anything else today.”

“Thank goodness.” Danny muttered it under his breath, but saw Rita nod. “Same girls riding with me, I assume?”

“Unless you want to drive all over the place,” Rita said, then turned to her daughter and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Luce, it’s time to get going.”

“Okay, Mom,” Lucy said. 

Rita did another quick head count, then herded her group of seven out of the theater lobby to the parking lot. She gave him a little wave at the door and headed around him with an unsubtle parting glance at his ass before making a beeline for her minivan. 

“All right, girls, let’s get you home,” Danny said, motioning for Grace, Caitlyn, and Riley to follow him. 

The girls whispered with each other while they walked, stuck together like three peas in a pod. Mostly, the conversation seemed to be about the movie, though he was sure he heard mentions of “dad” and “cool”. It was a notable feat, considering the last major interaction he’d had with Riley it had been her babbling some technological mumbo jumbo at him like he had the brain capacity of a guppy. Danny felt a little silly for the burst of warmth idea Grace’s friends didn’t think he was a giant dork (yet) provoked in him, and the way he couldn’t keep the corners of his mouth from tipping into a small smile. He had to take his victories where he could get them.

So, of course it was just then in that small moment of contentment that it happened. He developed that familiar sensation of being watched. Darting covert looks around the parking lot, he didn’t immediately see a threat. In fact, he didn’t see anything until one of the girls squeaked.

“What is _that_?” Riley gasped, pointing.

 _That_ was desperately trying to hide behind one of those tiny two-seater vehicles that looked more like a giant roller skate than a car. Unfortunately for _That_ , the car was bright orange, looked stupid enough on its own to attract attention and also wasn’t nearly large enough to hide its mass. Danny would find the whole event absolutely pathetic to watch, if he wasn’t disturbed by the bold change in the animals MO. The thing, in the broad daylight, appeared to be long of neck, short of leg, shaggy brown all over, and was definitely related to Lorenzo the llama. Well, he thought, at least he had witnesses this time, and this time he understood the benefit of getting a picture – so animal control might believe him.

“Danno, it’s back,” Grace said, excited. “Guys, this is what I’ve been telling you about. We keep seeing it, but usually just me and my dad. Do you believe me now?”

“Yes,” Caitlyn and Riley said, their voices quiet.

“Girls, stay behind me. I know it doesn’t look scary, but we don’t know what this thing is capable of,” Danny said, he stared at the thing through the windows of its tiny hiding spot. “And I’m going to end this nonsense once and for all.”

The animal, clearly sensing its position had been compromised, reared back with one of those clown horn slash donkey noises, which prompted Riley and Caitlyn to make similar sounds. Distressed, the girls tugged at his arm as he pulled his cell from his pocket. The phone slipped out of his fingers and clattered to the ground. Quickly, he bent to retrieve it, and that was all the time it took. Somehow or another, when he resumed his full height the mystery creature was gone. Or it appeared to be gone; maybe it had found an SUV to crouch behind. He edged the girls toward the car, hitting the fob to unlock it. He opened the passenger door and tipped the front seat.

“Okay, Grace, you and Riley get in the back. Caitlyn, you’re up front. I want you guys to stay in here while I go see if I can find that thing,” Danny said.

“Don’t hurt it,” Grace said, her eyes huge and her lower lip wobbly.

“I’m not gonna hurt it. Have I ever given you the impression I want to engage with this thing at all?” Danny shot his daughter an exasperated frown. 

She returned it, threefold. “Daddy, you’ve pointed your gun at it or shouted mean things at it almost every time we’ve seen it.”

Oh. Right. That.

“Point taken. Well, right here and now, I just want to make sure I keep it contained until the professionals arrive, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Sweetheart, I promise I do not have anything on me that can hurt this thing.”

After suitably calming his daughter, who seemed to have an unnatural fondness for something she didn’t even know what it was, he tiptoed away from the car. He did a full sweep of the parking lot and didn’t find the thing. He didn’t even bother calling animal control, knowing they’d write him off completely if he called one more time with no evidence.

“Freaking hairy ninja,” he grumbled to himself all the way back to the car. “What kind of animal can vanish without a trace like this? Every. Single. Time.”

“Did you find it?” all three girls asked in unison the second he opened the door

“No.” Danny slid into the driver’s seat. He twisted so he could address them all. “I did not. It disappeared again, and again I didn’t get a picture.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Williams. I got a pretty good shot of it before when it was peeking through that orange car’s window,” Riley said pertly. She held up her phone. “I also googled the image and it brought up a big list of pictures and sites. It’s an alpaca. Specifically, a Suri breed.”

“An al-whatta?” Danny said stupidly.

H50H50H50

According to the folks at animal control, there were no alpaca farms on O’ahu and they weren’t exactly sure how one had made it onto the island. Truthfully, while he respected their professional curiosity, Danny didn’t give a damn about the logistics; he just wanted to stop having close encounters of the wild kind with the thing. He was grateful that animal control believed him at long last, though his now deep-rooted paranoia made him think there was a fair amount of skepticism still coming from them. To him, it seemed readily apparent by their comment about limited resources that they were not going to go out of their way to catch the shaggy alpaca running through the hills and beaches and highly urban parking lots of the island.

“Look, Danno, it says here that most of the alpaca population in the US are the Hua…Huac…,” Grace trailed off, a puzzled look on her face. She gave up on pronunciation and spun the computer around so he could see where she pointed on the screen. “Well, about eighty-five percent are these fluffy ones and only fifteen are the Suri kind like ours is. So ours is more special.”

Ours. 

“Excuse me, did you say ours? No, no. This animal is not our new pet, Gracie. And you can put those puppy-dog eyes away, because it is not happening. Not under any circumstances.”

No way was he falling for her sad little face on this subject, no matter how soft he usually was about that particular maneuver of hers. Since yesterday afternoon, his life had become all about alpacas. He knew more about their sounds, habits, habitats and the plethora of uses for their wool than any human ever should know, barring an actual alpaca farmer. After dropping Riley and Caitlyn off at home, his daughter had virtually chained herself to her laptop searching for every piece of literature about alpacas out there. On the one hand, Danny was grateful her brain was no longer on floppy-haired musicians. On the other, floppy-haired camelids weren’t exactly a step up as far as obsession material went. 

“Daddy, it says here that alpacas shouldn’t be alone. It makes them stressed and sick, and the one that follows us around _must_ be sad and lonesome like I said.”

“That’s terribly tragic,” Danny said, barely containing an eye roll.

“Tragic. Yes, exactly.” Grace’s head bobbed up and down, her eyes fixated on the computer. “They’re social herd animals, and that means they like groups. I think it wants a family.”

“That, my intrepid alpaca researcher, is not us.”

“But…”

“No buts. Nope.” Danny clicked the laptop shut. “No more alpaca talk today. I’ve only got a few more hours till you need to get back to your mom’s house, and I do not want to spend it talking about the care and upkeep of domesticated farm animals. Capisce?”

Graced nodded, but stared at him unhappily. Much as Danny hated to be the one putting that look on her face, he was also starting to hate alpacas even if he had to admit there was something awkwardly charming about them. In photos. In person, he was less swayed. 

“Now why don’t you finish up that homework you still have left,” Danny said. 

“Because I don’t want to spend the few more hours I have till I have to go back to Mom’s house doing math?” Grace said, a perfectly angelic lilt in her voice.

“Grace.”

“Dad.”

“Grace.”

“Fine.”

Grace heaved the math book out of her bag with a put-upon sigh, and set to her homework with a ferocious determination that had to be born out of the desire to get it over with as fast as possible. 

Danny watched for a moment, fondness flowing through him. Grace’s approach to schoolwork was almost identical to the way his had been at her age. When she was interested in a subject, she couldn’t be torn away; when she was less enthralled, she was still good at it but mostly just wanted to get it over with. He turned a pre-season game on as he tidied up the apartment, responding to Grace’s eye roll with a mouthed, “Multi-tasking.” 

Sure enough, it only took Grace twenty minutes to plow through her math assignment. She ended with a flourish of one hand dropping the pencil and the other slamming the book shut loudly. 

“I take it you’re done,” Danny said with some amusement. He gave up his halfhearted effort at cleaning and the game, as both teams also seemed to be giving only halfhearted efforts. “Need me to check your work?”

“Yep, and nope, it was easy.”

“All right, my little brainiac, then I say we go get a shave ice. Ruin that fancy dinner your mom’s probably having prepared.”

“Okay,” Grace said, though she lacked her usual enthusiasm.

“Hey, we don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Danny clasped Grace’s shoulder and gave her a little shake. “Would you rather do something else instead?”

Grace studied him, chewing on the inside of her right cheek as she apparently pondered the question. Her eyes darted toward her laptop, though, a dead giveaway. He rolled his eyes at her, to which she responded with a silent, “Multi-tasking.” Great, now his own flesh and blood was quoting him to him. It was a sad state of affairs. 

“I was hoping we could maybe…” Grace didn’t finish her thought. She shook her head. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Always.”

“Why don’t we ever spend time with Uncle Steve anymore?”

The question seemed out of the blue, but Danny knew his daughter. Long gone were the days of random inquiries with no cohesive thread between them. He wasn’t sure what had prompted it – he wasn’t going to pretend he knew the gory details of a preteen girl’s brain, just that it wasn’t arbitrary. Danny furrowed his eyebrows, though, about to protest the idea that they hadn’t hung around with Steve lately when he realized the Catherine drift had definitely impacted more than just his and Steve’s friendship. 

“Honey, I think that with his…” Danny swallowed past a sudden sharp taste in his mouth. “…girlfriend in town permanently, he’s just been busy.”

“Oh,” she said with a crestfallen expression that was heartbreaking. 

Her face summarized perfectly how he’d been feeling for quite some time but hadn’t been willing to put into the forefront of his mind. Danny couldn’t deal with his own Steve issues, really, except to keep them bottled up, but Grace’s he could attempt to smooth out.

“I guess it’s good he’s not lonely anymore, but I still miss hanging out with him.”

“I don’t think Steve was ever lonely.” Danny ignored the fact that when he’d first met the guy, lonely was just behind crazy in the list of adjectives he’d use to describe Steve. He opened the door and gestured for Grace to lead the way. “But have I ever told you that you’re possibly the sweetest person on the planet?”

“Only all the time,” Grace said. 

“It bears repeating,” Danny said. 

He took a deep breath, pondering what to do next. He knew what the smart, sanity-saving, logical thing would be. Danny fumbled with the key until he got it in the deadbolt and locked the door with a loud snick. Naturally, since this involved Steve, he picked the other thing. 

“Tell you what, if it’ll make you happy, how about we call him and invite him and Catherine for shave ice? We can make up for lost time.” He paused for a beat. “You don’t mind if Catherine comes too, do you? I know you have a little crush on Steve, and I want to make sure you can handle it.”

“Danno, _I_ don’t have a crush on Uncle Steve.” Grace scrunched her face like she’d just tasted a sour pickle. “I like Cath okay, she’s nice enough, I guess.”

Frankly, the inflection she put on her answer made him think she was looking for a cue from him. Curse responsible parenthood and the inability to give into irrational need to dislike someone for the sake of nothing at all. Danny gave Grace a tight-lipped smiled and pulled out his phone. 

“Okay. Let’s see if they’re in the mood, huh?” he asked.

The flaw in the plan came to him quickly; Steve’s phone rang, but wasn’t answered. Danny held the cell to his ear for more rings than he should have, debating on whether or not to leave a message. Eventually, he shook his head at Grace and dropped his arm. As he did so, he frowned and tilted his head. He swore he heard the tinny tunes of … _Baby Got Back_? … coming from the vicinity of the parking lot. The faint song vanished after a few beats, but it had played long enough to create an insidious earworm. 

“You could have left a message,” Grace said. “That way h…they could meet us, maybe.”

She was right, of course, and it was probably his own reluctance to hang out all happy-family style with Steve and Catherine touching and leaning and being coupley that made him not bother. Trust his daughter to call him on his subconscious actions. Danny smiled and dutifully dialed again as they carried forward to the car. This time, the sound of music was easily distinguishable as _Baby Got Back_ , and it was coming from the parking lot. More specifically, he thought with a strange flippy feeling in his gut, from the very large, familiar truck parked right next to his car. He ended his call again, and again the song cut off. He felt Grace nudge him as she pointed.

“Hey, isn’t that…?” 

It was, and there was no fudging his way out of it this time. Steve’s truck was at his apartment, yet Steve was not. Danny turned to her, intent on confirming it when he froze. He had too many neurons firing at the moment, not the least of which was suddenly about the looming, hairy shape hidden in the shrubs just to Grace’s left. Their mysterious visitor’s neck seemed to straighten even taller as it noticed him noticing it, and behind a scruff of hair Danny saw a big, glassy eye. For a heartbeat, there was absolutely no movement, it with a leaf hanging from its mouth and he with his mouth stupidly agape. Then Grace cottoned on to the fact they were not alone, gasped and grabbed Danny’s arm.

“Danno,” she said. “Don’t scare him away.”

Her voice was a catalyst. The alpaca immediately took several uncoordinated steps backward, disappearing further into the greenery. For a creature intent on stalking them, it sure was skittish. It didn’t bolt outright, holding its ground when he and Grace didn’t speak again. Beside him, Grace was fairly bouncing with excitement, her whole body twanging with energy he could feel. He was pretty sure she was building a pen for the thing in her head and picturing herself braiding its fur. 

“Okay, I solemnly swear, no scaring it.”

Danny must have said it too loudly, as the alpaca shuffled back again, then started hobbling away. He narrowed his eyes and watched it. Something was different. He noticed the alpaca was favoring its right hind leg, which seemed to be impeding its departure. The random earworm surged to the forefront of his brain again. Steve’s truck. Steve’s phone. No Steve. Limping Steve, limping alpaca. It was like one of those dawning realization scenes in movies, the way his brain suddenly started seeing things in a new light. He was Chazz freaking Palminteri realizing who Kaiser Soze was, all of the pieces falling into place, rapid fire, nonsensical and suddenly also obvious. The alpaca showing up every place they went. Steve’s truck. Steve seeming uncertain about his weekend activities on coinciding weekends. Catherine being confused and then angry at him for mentioning Steve-related things.

“Steve,” Danny said, voice not much more than a croak. This was not possible. He was wrong. He was hallucinating. He was actually in a coma or something, having a dream. “Steve?”

The alpaca turned around, alert and startled, as if responding to the name. No, it _was_ responding to the name, or at least the cadence of Danny’s voice. It tipped its head to the side just slightly and froze in place. Then – this was also impossible, yet – the air seemed to shimmer. Grace gasped again. Danny blinked, and between his eyes closing and opening again, the alpaca vanished and in its place was Steve. 

Naked as the day he was born, hair all mussed and with the leaf still hanging out of his mouth.

Steve’s eyes were huge and round, just like when he’d been the alpaca. Except, no, people were not alpacas, Danny told himself; people could not turn into animals and vice versa. He rounded his self-lecture out with a mental curse for these whacked-out islands. If it could happen anywhere, it would happen here. And to Steve, who stood there and stared at him wordless but clearly baffled by the persistent and beautiful wide eyes. Danny stared back, equally wordless. Grace’s soft, “Uncle Steve?” reminded Danny that she was there and Steve was very, very (oh god, so, wow, there it was) naked. He clapped his hands over Grace’s eyes and tugged her close to him.

“Jeez, McGarrett, what the hell?” he said at last.

Steve opened his mouth. The leaf fluttered to the ground almost comically.

H50H50H50

Several times on the drive back from Kaneohe, Danny had almost gotten his brain wrapped around the events of the past few hours. At the last second, though, it would always veer back into _what-the-everloving-fuck_ territory and hunker down there, robbing him of any words. He’d seen Steve glance at him occasionally as well, also not speaking, and the furtive looks only added to the awkward tension that had filled the car.

The only thing that hadn’t surprised him all that much was when Steve mutely trailed behind him into his apartment and accepted a much-needed shot of whiskey followed by several beers. Now, after an excruciatingly long ten minutes of them sitting in continued silence, Danny thought he was getting close to distilling the thoughts swirling around in his head into some kind of coherent conversation starter. He was simply having a difficult time picking out which was the safest way to begin, as everything roiling around in his noggin seemed highly volatile. Most of it made his palms itch and his stomach feel so unsettled he knew the beer he kept drinking was probably a dumb plan. He was a detective. He was detecting things he hadn’t ever allowed himself to think could be.

“So,” Danny said, turning slightly on the sofa. He couldn’t help but notice Steve was clear on the other end – much further away than usual – and facing away. He frowned. “So, there are a few … maybe a lot … of things I need to get straight. I don’t even know where to start.”

They’d found Steve’s clothes by the truck, crumpled in a heap like he’d stepped out of them a second before he’d turned into an alpaca, of all the random creatures on this earth. Danny had kept his hands cupped over his innocent child’s eyes and tried desperately not to ogle while his partner shimmied quickly into his pants. After that, it was hazy, if he was going to be honest. He remembered Grace’s awe, delight and then irritation at being taken home early after being made to swear she wouldn’t mention Steve was sometimes, occasionally, maybe an alpaca, when she seemed to have every intention of picking Steve’s brain about the whole affair. 

Danny had taken pity on his partner, who genuinely didn’t seem to have a clue that he’d _been_ an alpaca, let alone how to answer Grace’s questions about spitting and crias and if he could recall what it was like to have four legs. Danny also remembered feeling woefully unprepared to tackle the subject of (formerly believed to be impossible) animal transformations on his own, which was how they’d ended up seeking professional help.

He thought maybe they’d sought the wrong kind of professional help.

“Danny,” Steve said. “I swear to you, I had no idea what was going on. I don’t remember anything from when, you know.”

Danny had theories now, himself, based on their conversation with Aaron Kauka, owner of a small occult shop in Kaneohe who claimed to be an expert on all things mystical, mythological or just plain weird. Frankly, though, had he not seen Steve literally change shapes right in front of him, he’d have labeled Kauka a first rate snake oil salesman and nothing more. Actually, he still felt that was true. 

“I believe you. I really do. As implausible as all of this is, I refuse to go that one last step and call it a shared delusion. It’s starting to make sense to me, and I don’t know if I should be scared or something else.”

Truthfully, it made his heart feel like it was palpitating. Kauka had essentially theorized exactly what Grace’s research on alpacas had already established – that Steve was looking for some kind of social connection and felt it was unattainable. The theory was that in the face of that unattainability, he became spiritually and physically altered. Danny got that, the unattainable bit anyway. He’d been partnered with Commander Unattainable for a while now. He didn’t quite understand how changing into an alpaca was some manifestation of that feeling, only that it paralleled what had been going on pretty seamlessly and if anyone were socially backward enough to conjure up something supernatural in the face of basic human interaction, it was Steve.

“Well, no, it doesn’t really make _sense_ , per se,” Danny continued. “After all, I’m under no illusion that someone having blackouts because he’s turning into an animal and then not bothering to tell anyone or, you know, maybe going to get himself examined makes sense. What I mean is, it’s you: of course you’re going to swan dive right into crazy. It’s what you do.”

He was rambling. He heard it, and he heard how cranky he sounded on top of it, but seriously. Those times Steve had wiggled out of telling what he’d done over the weekend had all been him stalking him and Grace. Those times Danny had thought Steve’s weekend plans revolved heavily around Catherine, they’d already been broken up. Those times Steve was going through something and not bothering to tell him about it. All of those things were troubling.

“I don’t have any idea why it happened, or if it’s gonna happen again,” Steve said, miserable as all get-out. He finally pivoted on the sofa, adjusting so he was facing Danny at last. “I’m really sorry for disrupting your time with Grace like that.”

Danny didn’t want an apology. He wanted to help Steve figure out how to not turn into an alpaca ever again. A hysterical laugh burst out of him. His partner had an alpaca secret identity. When he’d first met Steve, he thought he’d had terrible mammal to mammal communication skills. He’d had no idea how right he was. 

“Okay, first of all, you’ve been disrupting my life since day one. It’s nothing new. And ignoring the whole shapeshifting thing because I really don’t want to touch it with a fucking thirty-nine and a half foot pole, here’s what’s really at the heart of my confusion, the thing I keep going back to: you have always hung out with me and Grace. You outgrew the invitation-only rule years ago, so why all of a sudden did the thought of joining us for an occasional weekend outing make you change into an alpaca and lurk around like a goof instead of just barging in like usual?”

He knew there had to be a glimmer of logic in this mess somewhere. He only had to shake it out, and hope that it meant what he wanted it to. Steve looked at him all wide-eyed and beautiful again, with a pinkish color working its way up his neck and onto his face. Damn it, Danny knew he should not be attracted to a guy so emotionally constipated he’d rather go all _Animal Farm_ than face things head on. Except, he thought, tensing a little as Steve slid across the sofa, except it appeared there was about to be some facing.

“It was different.” Steve’s voice was quiet, uncharacteristically so. He took a shaky breath and rubbed his hands along his thighs. “I knew what I wanted, what I’ve wanted for a while. I didn’t know if asking for what I wanted would end up chasing you away. I think I panicked.”

Steve stopped talking, instead looked at his hands, then Danny’s feet.

“Babe.” Danny hesitantly reached out and put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “You’re really going to have to be more specific.”

Steve leaned into Danny’s touch and gave him an almost sad half-smile.

“Family,” Steve said. He ducked his head, exposing the fantastic curve of his nape. “Specifically, I discovered that when I painted a mental picture of family, it never included Catherine, but it did include you. It included Grace. I want to be more than the cool uncle to Grace. I want more than friendship with you.”

Oh. Danny gawked at Steve. It suddenly seemed like a whole swarm of bees was buzzing in his ears, the sound of it deafening. Danny had another proverbial puzzle slotting into place, a montage of evidence playing out scene by scene and they all boiled down to time wasted. Steve wasn’t with Catherine because of him. Steve was putting it all out there now, in no uncertain terms. This was … he should probably… 

“I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

The words came muffled and distant through the self-created din, but what was clear was Steve rising and heading for the door, favoring his right leg and moving slowly. Danny snapped out of his fugue, surging to his feet as Steve’s hand grabbed the doorknob.

“Steve,” he said loudly. “Don’t.”

“I can’t not feel this way,” Steve said, his tone thick with desperation. He faced Danny, expression as bleak as a cold New Jersey winter morning. “I tried. I can’t.”

“No, I mean don’t _go_.” Danny stepped close into Steve’s space. “Do you have any idea stupid we are? Both of us, idiots, you so high on the scale you morphed into a goofy-looking llama-adjacent animal rather than deal. And speaking of stupid, I’d like a word with you about your ringtone for me at some point. There needs to be a discussion. But, no, not important right now. I’m getting off track. Nerves. You turn into an animal, I talk too much. Anyway, right now, I need you to know that I don’t want you to go and I don’t want you to change into an alpaca on me here.”

“Danny, I…”

Danny pulled Steve down and swallowed whatever else he was going to say in that uncertain tone with a kiss. He would say that as far as first kisses went, this one was messy, but it was his own fault for not really waiting for a good moment. After a brief fumble of lips and tongue, it shaped up nicely and soon they were reading each other’s next move. The feel of Steve’s hand at the small of his back, then down as he grasped Danny’s ass had him groan encouragement and the next thing he knew, he was sprawled on the sofa with Steve on top of him already half naked. 

Logic would have told Danny to slow it down, but then logic had flown out the window round about the time Steve went from beast to naked in his front yard. He slid his hands into the back of Steve’s pants and pulled him closer. He wasn’t embarrassed at all for coming in his own pants about five seconds after their erections brushed up against each other, because, well...

Alpaca trumped everything, forever.

H50H50H50

On their next weekend with Grace, they had a small picnic on the beach behind the house. Grace, having been banned from alpaca talk with anyone else and really quite diligent about it, was therefore still moderately obsessed. They still fascinated her, though Danny had indeed found a way to help Steve from turning into one ever again. He passed around the bowl of veggies, snagging a grape tomato for himself and munching it while gazing at Grace and then Steve with fondness.

“Anyway – don’t worry, I didn’t say _anything_ about why – so I asked Mom to order some alpaca balls for the dryer,” Grace said excitedly, waving her hands around with such animation she almost lost her chicken drumstick into the surf. She gave Steve an adoring look, one Danny now knew wasn’t about unrequited feelings of the romantic kind. “They’re environmentally friendly and make everything soft.”

Danny grinned lecherously at Steve and mouthed, “Half right.”

Steve rolled his eyes but took Danny’s hand in his, squeezed it tight and positioned them so they were back to chest. They sat, perfectly fitted and comfortable in a lived-in kind of way, listening to Grace’s chatter and the sea’s calming waves. 

It occurred to Danny that if anyone would happen to see them this way, they’d say he and Steve and Grace were the picture of a very happy, very human family.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alpaca family collage.

[](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/superbadgirl/media/alpacafamily_zps3d930274.jpg.html)


End file.
